Tom did not want to see what was under that sheet.
But he had to.
It could be Moni. Or someone else who needed help.
So Tom took a slow step toward it, on the balls of his feet. Quietly, as if not to wake a sleeping baby. When he got within an arm’s length, the thing under the sheet twitched.
What are you doing, Tom? Are you insane? Get out of here.
But he didn’t get out of there. Instead, he pinched the sheet with the hand that held the knife.
Okay. Here we go…
He pulled, hard.
The sheet came off.
Aabir was kneeling there, staring up at him.
Her eyes were completely black.
It scared him so badly, he fell backward, onto his ass.
She smiled. Her teeth were black as well.
“Aabir, are you… are you okay?”
It was a ludicrous thing to say. The whites of her eyes were gone, and her teeth the color of coal. She was obviously in very deep shit.
So what should he do? Try to get her out of there?
“Aabir, can you hear me? Do you understand?”
Then Tom smelled it.
Burnt meat. Getting stronger. And footsteps, from the hall outside.
Tom quickly put Aabir’s sheet back over her head, and then crawled beneath the stone altar, hiding behind the coverlet and killing his flashlight just as Sturgis walked in. Tom could see him through a break in the fabric.
The ghost approached the altar, and stopped there. Then he yanked off Aabir’s sheet.
“Ready… for… the… sacraments…”
Aabir stared up at Sturgis and nodded. Then she turned her head and stared at Tom. Her eyes were so black they resembled holes in her head.
Don’t look at me, Tom willed. You’ll give away where I am. Stop it. Please stop it.
Then Sturgis placed his hand on her head, and she stared up at him again. He had a steak knife in his hand.
“Sanguis… satanas…”
Aabir opened her mouth and stuck out her black tongue. Sturgis jammed the knife into his palm and twisted it. Blood dribbled out, into Aabir’s mouth.
Sturgis took his hands away, and Aabir once again stared at Tom. She licked her red lips.
“Corpus… satanas…”
Sturgis now had the silver chalice. Tom knew what it was. A ciborium. Used in Catholic Mass to hold Communion wafers. The priest carried it to share the Body of Christ to his Parrish.
But when Sturgis opened the ciborium, it wasn’t filled with unleavened bread.
It was filled with cockroaches.
Sturgis snatched one, and held it in two fingers as it wiggled.
Aabir stuck out her tongue.
Tom squeezed his eyes shut. He could still hear the crunching. He felt his stomach flip-flop. Between the smell of burned meat, and the sound of eating bugs, he was very close to throwing up.
Then he felt a slight tickle on his nose.
His eyes sprang open and he saw Aabir holding the cup of roaches right in front of his face.
Tom knocked it away, then rolled backward, out from under the altar. His head hit the head of the upside-down Christ, and for a moment the world went wobbly. Then he slapped at a roach crawling on his cheek—
—and dropped his flashlight.
“I… took… good… care… of… your… partner… Roy…” Sturgis croaked in that otherworldly voice as he leaned over the altar. “I… will… take… care… of… you… as… well…”
Tom slashed out with his knife, cutting Sturgis across the chest. Then he got to his feet and ran.
Out of the room.
Down the hall.
Digging the light stick out of his pants just in time to see Ol’ Jasper blocking his path.
Mal
Mal was having a hard time believing he was trapped in another psychotic nightmare fearing for his life.
Even more incredible was the sad fact that he’d volunteered for it.
After fleeing from the library, they’d somehow wound up underneath the house, in a labyrinthine maze of dirt floors and wooden support beams and low lighting supplied by old, bare, dim bulbs. Mal hadn’t ever been in an underground mine, but he assumed this was what one looked like.
Frank Belgium was on the ground, unconscious, his arm bent in such a funky angle that it hurt Mal to look at it. Sara was kneeling next to him, an expression of shock on her face. The same look graced Deb, and Mal bet his face was damn near the same.
The only one who seemed to be handling this well was Pang, who was sitting on the stairs, digging through his bag of equipment, humming something softly to himself.
“We need to fix his arm,” Sara said. She first looked at Deb, who didn’t respond, and then to Mal.
“Sara…” He tried to keep his voice from cracking. “It will take a whole team of orthopedic surgeons hours on an operating table to fix that arm.”
“It’s bent the wrong way. We need to bend it back and put it in a sling before he wakes up.”
“If we touch it, we could make it worse.”
Sara barked out a semi-hysterical laugh. “Worse? Look at it, Mal!” She pointed at Belgium’s arm, which looked like a swollen letter N. “How can that get any worse?”
Mal chewed the inside of his cheek. He wanted to run. Grab Deb, run up the stairs, make a dash for the front door, and get the fuck out of there. They’d just met Sara and Frank a few hours ago. They didn’t owe them anything.
But that was the coward in Mal talking. The part he hated. The part that had taken over his life to the point where life wasn’t good anymore. Maybe they could escape, but to what? More insomnia? More sleepless nights? More fighting with Deb because they were both so goddamn terrified all the time?
Why couldn’t he just be brave?
That was the irony, wasn’t it? The only time it was possible to be brave was when you were scared out of your mind.
“Please help him!” Sara cried.
Mal took a big breath. Blew it out. He took a last lingering look up the stairs, to potential freedom, and made his decision.
I’m done being this guy.
Time to be the man I want to be.
“Deb.”
His wife didn’t reply.
“Deb, can you help Sara hold Frank down?”
She used the wall to get down on all fours, then crawled to Frank.
“Both of you, put your bodies on top of his. Pang, can you come here?”
“Hmm?” he looked up from his tech stuff.
“They’re going to hold Frank down. We’re going to yank on his arm, try to get the bones aligned.”
“Bro, if we pull on that arm, we might pull it right off.”
“We have to try.”
Pang shrugged, set down his bag, and came over.
Mal got on his butt and placed his feet against Belgium’s ribcage. Pang sat behind Mal, straddling him like they were on a log flume ride. Mal grabbed Frank’s misshapen wrist, and Pang grabbed Mal’s arm with both hands.
“Now!”
Mal and Pang pulled, hard as they could, straightening out Frank’s wrist.
There were popping and snapping sounds, followed by Frank waking up and screaming so loud it hurt Mal’s ears.
When Mal released him, the screaming continued.
“It’s okay, Frank. It’s okay,” Sara stroked his cheeks, trying to sooth him, but Frank was lost in a world of pain.
Worse, if he kept howling like that, he was going to attract some unwanted attention.
“Try to keep him quiet, Sara.”
“Shhh, Frank. We have to keep it down.”
“Anyone have a wallet? Give him something to bite on.”
Deb patted down Frank’s pants, found a leather billfold, and crammed it in his mouth. Frank clenched down on it, still screaming in his throat. Mal didn’t know what to do. Knock him out? If only they could give him something.